Liliom learns his wife is pregnant and robs a bank. During the getaway, he is killed and given a chance to return to Earth. He quickly learns the only way to make his wife and daughter happy... Read allLiliom learns his wife is pregnant and robs a bank. During the getaway, he is killed and given a chance to return to Earth. He quickly learns the only way to make his wife and daughter happy is to leave them with cherished memories.Liliom learns his wife is pregnant and robs a bank. During the getaway, he is killed and given a chance to return to Earth. He quickly learns the only way to make his wife and daughter happy is to leave them with cherished memories.
- Hollinger
- (as Guinn Williams)
- Louise
- (as Dawn O'Day)
- Linzman
- (as James Marcus)
- Stefen Kadar
- (uncredited)
- Suicidal Train Passenger
- (uncredited)
- Buttercup
- (uncredited)
- Housekeeper
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis is the first film to use rear projection for backgrounds.
- Quotes
Chief Magistrate: [to Liliom] The memory of you makes them much happier than you could ever make them.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Rodgers & Hammerstein: The Sound of Movies (1996)
This movie is a fairy tale, but of the pre-Disney, "Match Girl" Brothers Grimm kind. It is not nice, but shows the awful side of life for the poor. There is a hands motif throughout the film. People express themselves with their hands. Julie's friend Marie tells her about passionate love. She explains that it is when your lover holds your hand and swings it back and forth. Notice how the seductive Buzzard (Lee Tracy) uses his hands in his scenes. Notice too how his hand is held in the climatic scene by the man he attacks. Finally, it is the hand of Liliom slapping the face of his daughter that ends his second chance.
There is also a neat train motif. Notice that Liliom dreams of taking a train to get to his dreamland of America. He yearns to be one of the fine gentlemen who rides on those trains. It is also on trains that he finds his destiny. Some feminist critics were upset that Liliom was an abusive lover and mentioned that the movie promoted domestic violence. That is nonsense. The movie makes clear that Liliom's violence occurs because Julie is smarter than him and he can't answer her. In other words, it explains his actions, but certainly doesn't justify or promote them. Even Julie's statement that you can love somebody so much that you don't feel the pain when somebody hits you, just means that love is more powerful than violence, a beautiful message, which does not at all excuse or promote domestic violence. It simply offers insight into it.
The movie is a religious fantasy promoting a neo/pseudo-Christian world-view, but it is done with style, so like Cecil B. Demille's "Ten Commandments," you hardly notice the theological lesson being promoted.
One of the funniest jokes in the movie is when the Chief Magistrate tells Lilliom that he is going to hell on a train called "the Red Express," He then adds parenthetically that no political message was intended. Of course, that the name of the train was the Red Express and it was going to hell would have been taken by most of the audience to be a political attack on the Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union. It seems that a political message was intended.
The movie is fascinating and a beautiful work of art from the period that still moves us emotionally.
I'll have to watch more of the director Frank Borzage's work with this film in mind.
- jayraskin1
- Aug 12, 2016
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Frank Borzage's Liliom by Franz Molnar
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 34 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.20 : 1